Taipei Story

By (author) Kuang, Rebecca F
Short description/annotation:

TAIPEI STORY is the electrifying new novel by bestselling literary phenomenon Rebecca F. Kuang, a profoundly moving coming-of-age story that explores first love, second language and final goodbyes – all set against the backdrop of one unforgettable summer in Taipei.

Description:

TAIPEI STORY is the electrifying new novel by bestselling literary phenomenon Rebecca F. Kuang, a profoundly moving coming-of-age story that explores first love, second language and final goodbyes – all set against the backdrop of one unforgettable summer in Taipei.

Yale student Lily Chen arrives in Taipei hungry: for family, for culture, for connection.

But her summer of discovery quickly unravels. Her classes are grueling, her roommate unbearable, and a reckless, deeply awkward trip to the hot springs with a guy she barely knows soon ignites vicious gossip.

Then her grandfather dies. Grieving and adrift, Lily must confront her own questions about the culture she inherited but never fully understood. She embarks on a wryly funny, often devastating search for understanding: of herself, her family, and the meaning of home.

All over one unforgettable summer in Taipei.

''Like any great artist, she’s not preoccupied with external perception. There is a wildness and freedom to her work that is extraordinary. Her characters are complex and human; nothing feels contrived'' TIME MAGAZINE
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Praise for YELLOWFACE:
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‘Propulsive’ SUNDAY TIMES
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‘Razor-sharp’ TIME
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‘Strikingly topical’ GUARDIAN
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‘Scathing, spiky, and full of laugh-out-loud moments’ GLAMOUR
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‘A clever, pacy tale’ SARA PASCOE
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''A riot'' PANDORA SYKES
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‘Uncomfortable and addictive… a must-read’ INDEPENDENT
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''I guarantee it will stay with you'' AFUA HIRSCH
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''Tense, modern… a brilliant exploration of the literary world'' AISLING BEA
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Praise for KATABASIS:
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''Katabasis is a celebration of “the acrobatics of thought”. A tale of poets and storytellers, thinkers and theorists, art-makers and cultural sorcerers. This is a novel that believes in ideas – just not the cages we build for them'' GUARDIAN
Biographical note:

Rebecca F. Kuang is the #1 New York Times and #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of Katabasis, Yellowface, Babel: An Arcane History and the Poppy War trilogy. Her work has won the Nebula, Locus, Crawford, and British Book Awards. A Marshall Scholar, she has an MPhil in Chinese Studies from Cambridge and an MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies from Oxford. She is now pursuing a PhD in East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale, where she studies diaspora, contemporary Sinophone literature, and Asian American literature.

Promotional headline:

The profound and poignant new 2026 literary novel from the Sunday Times and New York Times #1 bestselling author of YELLOWFACE and KATABASIS

Feature:

The profound and poignant new 2026 literary novel from the Sunday Times and New York Times #1 bestselling author of YELLOWFACE and KATABASIS

- Rebecca is already a literary darling and there is an enormous appetite for her amongst readers, booksellers and the media
- TAIPEI STORY is Rebecca’s literary debut and our ambition is to make he